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The document examines the increasing influence of multinational corporations within the UN, specifically regarding the 'Green Economy', 'Sustainable Energy for All' (SE4ALL), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), water policies, and the UN Global Compact. It contends that these partnerships lead to 'greenwashing' and the commodification of nature and water, while marginalizing civil society and the rights of the poor.

The IAI report for 2011-2012 details the conclusion of the Second Collaborative Research Network (CRNII) and the Small Grants Program for Human Dimensions (SGP-HD), highlighting their roles in enhancing regional scientific capacity and interdisciplinary research. Key research findings focus on land-use change and carbon emissions in the La Plata basin, biodiversity risks in the tropical Andes, and the role of the Patagonian shelf in global CO2 balance. The report also outlines new funding awards for 2012-2018 and capacity-building initiatives in climate health and water management. However, it documents severe operational instability in Brazil, including staffing contract irregularities and unresolved tax disputes involving the Brazilian Revenue Service.

The IAI report details the conclusion of the second round of Cooperative Research Networks (CRNII) and the Small Grants Program for Human Dimensions (SGP-HD), highlighting research on land-use change in the Plata Basin and biodiversity in the tropical Andes. It outlines new NSF-funded grants for 2012-2018, various regional capacity-building workshops on climate and health, and efforts to communicate findings at UNFCCC events. The report also documents severe administrative instability in Brazil, including personnel contract irregularities and disputes with the Brazilian tax administration.

The report details a one-year anniversary meeting of the Lake Winnipeg Basin Summit, focusing on the Lake Winnipeg Bioeconomy Project. This initiative seeks to reduce phosphorus loading in Lake Winnipeg by 50% while creating a clean technology cluster in Manitoba. Key tools introduced include the Manitoba Bioeconomy Atlas for geospatial planning. Stakeholders emphasized the need for financial viability, clear communication, and pilot projects to prove the concept, while expressing concerns about potential biodiversity loss and the need for coordinated government leadership.

This fact sheet outlines a series of global events, publications, and policy agreements from 1962 to 2012 that have shaped the concept of sustainable development. It tracks the progression from early environmental warnings, such as the publication of Silent Spring, through the establishment of major international bodies like the UNEP and IPCC, to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol and the Millennium Development Goals. The timeline highlights the increasing intersection of environmental protection, economic policy, and social equity, noting the rise of the 'green economy' and the critical role of both developed and emerging nations, particularly China, in the global energy transition.

The document examines how community protocols and FPIC processes empower indigenous and local communities to protect their land, resources, and traditional knowledge. Through various case studies in countries such as India, Peru, Ghana, and Cameroon, it argues that these tools are most effective when they are bottom-up processes designed and controlled by the communities themselves rather than imposed top-down by governments or corporations. The report highlights the role of the Nagoya Protocol and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in providing international legal support for these tools, while noting that national implementation often remains inadequate.

The 2012 SAIIA Young Leaders Declaration calls for international and national action on environmental sustainability, the eradication of poverty in Least Developed Countries, and the transition to renewable energy in South Africa. It further advocates for universal education through improved infrastructure and teacher support, and proposes a specific structural reform of the UN Security Council to ensure fairer regional representation, particularly for Africa.

The document provides a comprehensive overview of ecosystem services, categorizing them into supporting, regulating, provisioning, and cultural services. It discusses the economic valuation of these services, contrasting market-based and non-market valuation methods, and argues that assigning monetary value is essential for sustainable policy-making and corporate risk management. The report also introduces 'ecosystem disservices'—negative impacts of nature on human well-being—and provides practical frameworks for local governments and businesses to integrate natural capital into their strategic planning.

The report analyzes the challenges of implementing agri-environmental measures under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) within the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). It finds that a lack of coordination between agricultural and environmental sectors, insufficient stakeholder involvement, and an 'uneven playing field' in funding and entitlements have hindered the achievement of environmental boundary conditions. The authors argue that the CAP's national focus often undermines transboundary cooperation and regional cohesion. To address this, they recommend consolidating CAP Pillars 1 and 2 to treat environmental services as a core value of farming and introducing 'soft measures' to support stakeholder dialogue and regional nutrient reduction targets.

The report finds that the integration of climate change adaptation into Swedish forestry policy was slow and hindered by the dominance of production and mitigation frames. While academic advocacy and external events like Storm Gudrun (2005) increased awareness, the sector's long tradition of relying on experience over predictive modeling and a strong focus on short-term productivity created significant resistance. The study concludes that while some progress was made through the Commission on Climate and Vulnerability, adaptation is often viewed through the narrow lenses of either increasing production or preserving biodiversity, rather than as an integrated policy approach.

The Living Planet Report 2012 documents a significant global decline in biodiversity and a growing ecological overshoot, where human demand exceeds the Earth's regenerative capacity. It highlights the disproportionate impact of biodiversity loss in tropical and low-income regions and the role of carbon emissions in driving ecological deficits. The report advocates for a paradigm shift toward managing natural capital within planetary limits through 16 priority actions focused on preserving natural capital, producing better, consuming more wisely, and redirecting financial flows and governance.

The Living Planet Report 2012 documents a significant global decline in biodiversity and a state of 'ecological overshoot,' where human consumption exceeds the Earth's regenerative capacity. It highlights the disproportionate impact of high-income countries on natural resources and proposes a framework for preserving natural capital through better production, wiser consumption, and equitable governance.

The document describes 'evergreen agriculture' in Zambia, a system combining agro-forestry and conservation farming to address low maize yields, soil degradation, and erratic rainfall caused by climate change. By integrating specific tree species into crop systems, the approach improves soil nutrients, water infiltration, and carbon storage. The text advocates for increased research and the potential integration of these practices into a Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) to secure international support.

The report critiques the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership (KFCP), a bilateral agreement between Australia and Indonesia designed to pilot REDD carbon offsets. It argues that the project ignores indigenous land rights, fails to address the primary drivers of deforestation, and risks creating social conflict. The document further contends that market-based REDD mechanisms generally shift climate responsibility from rich to poor nations and are prone to 'leakage' and permanence issues.

The document analyzes the risks associated with hydropower projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), noting that hydropower represents 30% of all registered CDM carbon offset projects as of September 2011. It argues that without effective criteria for additionality and sustainability, the CDM risks issuing credits for 'business-as-usual' projects and shifting mitigation costs to poor communities in the South. The study specifically focuses on China and India, which together hold 78% of registered hydropower CDM projects, as well as Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the EU's application of World Commission on Dams (WCD) guidelines for projects selling credits into the European Emissions Trading Scheme.

The document details the outcomes of a September 2011 workshop designed to scope the Arctic Resilience Report (ARR). It defines resilience as the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while retaining its identity, and proposes a methodology to identify 'tipping points'—abrupt and potentially irreversible changes in social-ecological systems. The report outlines a preliminary assessment of Arctic drivers (such as climate change and resource demand), sources of general resilience (including biodiversity and governance), and potential regime shifts across local, regional, and pan-arctic scales. It concludes with a formal proposal to the Arctic Council to implement the ARR project between 2012 and 2015, emphasizing the integration of indigenous knowledge and the need for policy-relevant outputs.

The document outlines various international efforts to protect the ancestral and collective rights of local communities and Indigenous Peoples. It highlights resistance against large-scale industrial projects, such as the Bakun dam in Malaysia, mining in the Philippines and Costa Rica, and oil sands extraction in Canada and the US. The report also discusses community-based forest governance in Indonesia and Cameroon, the promotion of food sovereignty through local markets in Colombia and seed banks in Uruguay, and the fight against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) globally. It argues that community rights serve as a legal and social tool to resist corporate dominance and transition toward environmentally sustainable and socially just societies.

The document provides a framework for integrating green growth into national development planning, emphasizing that environmental and economic goals are not mutually exclusive. It outlines a planning process involving vision setting, baseline assessment, option development, and impact analysis. The guide details various economic models—ranging from macro-level computable general equilibrium models to spatial mapping—while highlighting challenges such as data scarcity in least developed countries and the 'black box' nature of complex models. Case studies from Rwanda and the 'Heart of Borneo' illustrate the practical application of these strategies to balance economic growth with climate resilience and natural capital preservation.

The document outlines a framework for 'green growth' that integrates economic development with climate resilience and environmental preservation. It argues that while green growth planning follows conventional economic steps, it requires additional considerations regarding social and environmental dimensions, a diverse range of economic modeling tools, and a pragmatic, iterative approach to accommodate local contexts and data limitations in developing nations.

The authors argue that the EPA's cost-benefit analysis for cooling water intake structures (CWISs) is fundamentally flawed due to the systematic underestimation of environmental benefits and the overestimation of costs. By incorporating a wider range of non-use values, correcting recreational value estimates based on the Bay Shore Power Plant study, and using revised cost estimates from Powers Engineering, the authors demonstrate that the most stringent regulatory options (Options 2 and 3) can yield positive net benefits. They further contend that the economic impact on electricity rates would be minimal and that stricter regulation would actually be more beneficial for national GDP and employment. Finally, they strongly oppose the use of site-specific calculations, suggesting instead a national standard with a higher threshold (e.g., 500 MGD) to protect smaller facilities while maintaining high environmental benefits.